fatsO – Jazzfest Bonn

Blues-rock of Bogota with plenty of character

“A timeless sound, intelligent and passionate, sophisticated and street-wise, all at the same time” – Ricardo Durán, Rolling Stone Colombia

fatsO, Bogota, Colombia: Live It’s Getting Bad at Jazz Ahead, Germany

fatsO, Hello

fatsO, Clip European Tour, Spring 2016

Before founding fatsO, Restrepo had different experiences in the Bogota’s musical scene. As the bassist of Asdrúbal, a very experimental band from Bogota, he explored the free jazz and the traditional music of both Colombian coasts. He played experimental percussions with the Tekeyé band, also from Bogota and finally he was involved as the producer and cultural manager and created his own label Reef Records and distribution company ¡Bulla!. But, he also was the bassist of the band Seis Peatones.

It was only in 2007 that things changed when Restrepo brought a broken double bass in La Habana, Cuba for only 100 dollars. He shut himself up at home to study and repair his new instrument and set about writing and arranging a preliminary repertoire for an acoustic trio.

Afer moving about across clubs and taverns as a trio, fatsO, became a sextet. The premiere of fatsO as sextet was in 2013 at Jazz in The Park Festival in Bogota but also the debut of his first self-titled album. In this recording, was clear Restrepo’s predilection for a raw sound with a very soul-jazz, folk, blues and rock sound on the style of Willy Dixon, Ottis Redding, Marc Ribot, Gregory Porter, Leonard Cohen, Joe Cocker and Tom Waits.

fatsO approaches to the old dirty sound of the territory bands of the 1930’s as well as the Afro-American blues performed in the cabarets in the 50’s. Add to all this, the songs that Restrepo has composed to describe his own way of seeing today’s facts.

In spring 2016 fatsO took Europe by storm, after releasing their premiere international album “On Tape” with the German Label Jazzhaus Records. With their raw Energy emerging from the midst of Bogota with more than 8 million, it was no problem. The first indication of this was at their concert at the Music Conference, Jazz Ahead, in Bremen in April 2015, where the audience celebrated them with standing ovations.